There’s Something Better Than Happiness
Two takeaways:
Edmundson argues that the images & experiences we covet and associate with total happiness– say, a tropical beach, a music festival, or laying in a shaded hammock with a book in hand– offer a version of joy that comes up short. Instead, he urges us to be more guarded in our pursuit of happiness– that happiness in high doses like these should be taken in guarded doses.
Why? Because, per the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, human beings are caught between two enemies: pain and boredom. We spend our lives fleeing pain, but the moment we escape it, the mind doesn’t rest — it starts demanding new distractions. That restlessness is what pushes people toward gambling, phone-addiction, and other self-sabotaging pursuits. The problem with the “happy life” we chase, in other words, is that it inevitably breeds boredom. And boredom breeds trouble.
Instead, he argues, true happiness lies in finding something to “occupy your intellect.” This will keep the mind from succumbing to idleness. Choosing activity & passion over passive forms of happiness.
Edmundson offers a key distinction, by way of Simone de Beauvoir, between two ways of being as you move through the world:
- Being-in-itself: A static, passive state where a person strives to appear complete, whole, and perfect— a fixed identity performed for others rather than chosen for oneself. This is all too often the default for those who live on their phones, following the standards of others, and seeking out happiness without purpose.
- Being-for-itself: An active, ongoing commitment to engaging with the world — taking on a “project,” creating one’s own values & passions, and shaping a life around them rather than settling into a fixed role. It doesn’t guarantee happiness, but it does offer something Beauvoir considered more durable than momentary happiness: meaning.
Edmundson argues that it is better to seek meaning rather than pleasure. Even meaning-seekers need an occasional break— a luxurious meal, a sun-washed beach— but the point, he suggests, is not to stay in that temporary “happy place” for too long, and surely not to aspire to live in it for the rest of our lives. Instead, seek out the satisfaction that comes with purpose & full mental engagement.
That, he argues, is better than happiness.
by Mark Edmundson for The New York Times:
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